


Fireworks

by spycandy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, PTSD, Stakeout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-22
Updated: 2011-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:37:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spycandy/pseuds/spycandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fireworks put John on edge, but at least there's a case to distract him</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireworks

The screeches and bangs had been almost incessant since before it even went fully dark. Whose bright idea was it to put Diwali and Bonfire Night on the same day?

John put down his book and fixed his tremoring hand with a baleful stare. His conscious mind was fully aware that the flash and crackle over Baker Street wasn't tracer fire. Telling the difference between rockets bought in Tesco and Taliban rocket attacks was not much of a challenge for anyone who had lived in a warzone. But that didn't stop his body from reacting to the sounds.

It wasn't fear, far from it. The bangs didn't have him cowering and flinching like a terrified family pet.

No, for three hours and 42 minutes – since the hearing those first loud reports at sundown -- John's body had been ready for the casualties to come in. That was how it went. You heard the explosion, sometimes close enough that the ground shook, you heard the gunfire, and you sprang into action, clearing space to work, grabbing equipment. Then came the tense wait until the screams arrived and you could start saving lives.

But the wait was usually only minutes and scrubbing the kitchen with frantic energy had done little to quell his body's reaction to the cacophony in the London sky. All that adrenaline, with nothing to do and nowhere to go, was making him edgy and frustrated.

Another rat-tat-tat of fireworks rang out and John had to force himself to stay in his chair, picking up the TV remote and making a play of flicking through the channels. The nightmares would be back with a vengeance tonight, of that he was certain.

On the far side of the room, Sherlock was typing, nineteen to the dozen, hunched over the laptop propped on his knees, apparently oblivious to the sounds and glittering lights going on outside the window. Earlier he had been exclaiming out loud at the preposterous problems people brought to his website. “It's in your neighbour's shed! He isn't tall enough! Try the Archives Nationales d'outre-mer, you witless oaf!”

But something had clearly grabbed his full attention, as there hadn't been any exasperated muttering for some 15 minutes, just the rapid clatter of fingers across the keyboard.

The typing stopped abruptly. “Oh ho!” said Sherlock. “It's tonight.”

“What is?”

“Illegal auction of stolen antiquities. There've been whispers about it for days. Looks like they've got a couple of things stolen from an archaeological dig in Iran, not to mention several items no-one's even noticed are missing from museum storage yet. Up for a stake out?”

Was he _ever_. He sprang from the chair in answer.

“It could be a long cold night of watching a door,” Sherlock warned, rummaging through the various heaps of discarded newspapers, reference books and sheet music with chemical formulas scribbled in the margins. “Now, where's that night vision camera gone?”

John – already wrapped in his winter coat and boots – was able to solve that mystery, having put the expensive piece of purloined police kit away in a cupboard to avoid it being accidentally thrown out with the take-out cartons. Having checked the batteries, he handed it over, before pulling on a black knitted watch cap to complete an outfit suitable for night surveillance.

Sherlock led the way, checking his watch and phone as they huffed through the park. “We need to be there by nine,” he said, as they strode past the open air theatre. “Probably won't see anyone important for a while though – just underlings getting things set up.”

“There” turned out to be the rooftop of a block of flats in St John's Wood, with spectacular views -- especially for the sports fan. John had to wonder whether it was possible to gain access to this roof on test match days.

Their vantage point also gave them an enviable view of at least a dozen spectacular fireworks displays – with distant copper-blue explosions visible through the nearby silver sparkles. Although the evening's work was likely to consist of a long wait in the cold night air, John was pleased to note that the miserable tension had been entirely supplanted by the thrill of a case. His hand, taking its turn at holding the night-vision camera, was now perfectly steady.

A small, unflashy car pulled up outside the early Victorian terraced house they were watching and John snapped away as the occupants unloaded several well-wrapped items from the boot and carried them inside.

“Shouldn't we call in the police?” he asked.

“Have you met the Art and Antiques Unit? There are only three of them and while Alfred's genuinely entertaining if you ever want to spend an afternoon prowling Mayfair spotting high-priced fakes in shop windows, I don't believe he'd thank us for making him spend the night up here.”

John chuckled.

“Don't worry,” added Sherlock. “I've texted Lestrade. I'm sure he's dealing with all the tedious business of getting search warrants at this very moment.”

For more than two hours they sat side by side on the rooftop, passing the camera to and fro. There were plenty of comings and goings at the house far below, with a number of well-dressed men and women arriving individually and in pairs. The fireworks display in the Hampstead direction reached a noisy climax of whizzes and bangs before falling silent. Smaller rockets still occasionally screeched up from back gardens.

“There!” said Sherlock, leaning forwards as a large man with a bushy white beard stepped from an elegant Jaguar and headed towards the door. “That's the man we want.”

Once John had taken a dozen pictures of the man strolling from his car to the door, Sherlock grabbed the camera and with a few rapid button clicks started sending pictures from the camera via his phone to Lestrade's number.

Once the “sent” message finally appeared, he turned to John. “Want to stay to watch some real fireworks?” he asked.

They watched the police cars pull up, tiny like toys when watched from so high up, and tiny toy-person Lestrade banging on the door. A warrant was brandished and moments later tiny criminals were led out of the house in handcuffs and loaded into the cars. The large bearded man was remonstrating angrily, but they were too far away to hear anything that was said.

It had been a good night's work, thought John on the walk back to Baker Street. Criminals had been caught red-handed and no-one had been injured. It had also, from his point of view, been a remarkably convenient night's work, coming just as the fireworks were becoming unbearable and ending in time for what was now likely to be a good night's sleep. Almost as if...

No, surely Sherlock couldn't have set the whole thing up for his benefit. He could, plausibly have set up a fake stake-out – there were plenty of grateful past clients out there who would spend an evening milling around their front door for their favourite detective – but he'd hardly have got quite so many police to play along.

He shot Sherlock a quizzical glance. The detective walking beside him returned it with an inscrutable look of his own.

>>>

The huge image file Sherlock had sent of the evening's quarry getting out of his car was a little baffling to Lestrade. He'd had no idea that the consulting detective was working on the same case that had consumed his team and the AAU for the past week, with well-placed informants close to the dealers and round-the-clock surveillance on the address. Alfred was going to have a whale of a time returning all those stolen items to their rightful museums.

The picture appeared to have been taken from somewhere high up and did at least solve the case of the missing night vision camera, Lestrade noted with a shake of his head.

Still, extra evidence was always handy.


End file.
